The Wheeling Heritage Music BluesFest ... or the part I saw

The Wheeling (that's wild and wonderful West Virginia) Heritage Music BluesFest has been getting great blues lineups the last few years, and I finally got a chance to spend a little time there on Saturday. It's a three-day event, and was able to squeeze in a visit Saturday afternoon and evening. I especially wanted to catch Watermelon Slim and then the Mannish Boys.

Winding up her set by the time I rolled in was Barbara Blue, the Pittsburgh blues shouter turned Memphisian(?), where she's been working since the late '90s.

I heard her a few times years ago, and she was impressive then. If anything, she seems to have gotten better with age -- a strong, tough traditional blues singer. Like a lot of other people, Barbara seems to have had to leave the Burgh in order to become a famous former Pittsburgh.

Blue Bella Review

Next up was the Blue Bella Review, a showcase for the Blue Bella Records (check that link for links to all the bands) stable of players dedicated to keeping the traditional blues -- especially the great sounds of '50s and '60s Chicago.

Nick Moss, of Nick Moss and the Flip Tops, started Blue Bella in 1998, and the label's four bands: the Flip Tops, Gerry Hundt, the Kilborn Alley Blues Band and harpist Bill Lupkin, were all represented, making for a crackling set of good old-fashioned Chicago-style blues.

Moss is a fine enough singer and guitarman, but got a lot of support from blues mandolinist Hundt, Kilborn Alley frontman Andy Duncanson, Willie Oshawny on keyboards, and Lupkin's soaring harp in a round-robin of performances giving everyone his best shot. The blues fans took to all this music much like blues fans take to cold beer on a hot day (both of which were also in abundance).

They did a drop-dead version of the Muddy Waters' classic "Another Mule," and the ensemble "Every Day I Have the Blues" was simply fine.

Hundt made his mandolin cry the blues, Lupkin's harp moaned the blues, and Moss's searing slide scorched the blues. They didn't want to stop, and crowd almost didn't let them ... but even the blues has to give way to time -- and the next band.

Since BlueNotes is a sucker for things that go bark in the night (note all the HoneyBoy dog references), it was a pleasure to stumble on Moss's Web page homage to a former pet, Muddy Dogger. BlueNotes and HoneyBoy send their condolences.

Watermelon Slim

Bill Homans has one of the best blues nicknames going, and his alter-ego Watermelon Slim has one of the best blues gigs going.

I'd missed Slim when was in the Burgh a while back, and I was happy to have another chance to see him -- having really enjoyed his last couple of albums. He's been knocking back blues awards like good whiskey, after banging around the known universe for an interminable length of time without getting his due for his blues.

Now he is. Slim is someone who used to be called a "character," with a personal history weird enough that his bio could be embroidered on a crazy quilt.

Like many blues wiseguys, Slim writes most of his own songs, and most of them are written with his word processor firmly in his cheek. They can be happy, bleak or desperate, but Slim makes you want to sing right along with his despair.

He didn't disappoint here, working his way through a set while he wailed on the harp, used what looked like a socket wrench socket on the guitar laid flat in front of him, and just generally mugged, wailed and railed about life, and the pleasures and perils of living it. It was fine to hear him dig into "Wheel Man," "Devil's Cadillac" and more from self-penned blues repertoire.

He worked in a few references to his stint in Vietnam (where he learned to play guitar while hospitalized), involvement with Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and played "Taps" on the harp in a salute to fallen soldiers. Slim also signed autographs and CDs and talked to fans all through the next set.

Ana Popovic

Next up was Ana Popovic, the Belgrade, former Yugoslavia, native, who's been slicing up the stage with her fiery blues guitar ever since she arrived in Memphis to record her first album in 2000.

She ran through everything from T-Bone Walker blues to Jimi Hendrix' "House Burning Down" with ease, and it was kinda fun to hear her introduce the songs in her Belgrade-accented English, then rip into the lyrics like a woman born to sing the blues.

And yes, in case it went unnoticed by the crowd leaning into the stage and staring, she's a lovely woman, if I can say that without sounding sexist. (BlueNotes can ignore the rules, since he's not an actual person who has undergone sensitivity training.) Not that Nick Moss, for example, is not a lovely hunk of a man, but watching Ana work the guitar and crowd has the feeling of watching a supermodel in a photo shoot for a guitar ad.

All right, she can play, too. Real good.

 Mannish Boys

The name comes from an old and very classic Muddy Waters tune, co-written, in case you didn't know, by Bo Diddley.

The band comes from another era, too -- an era when men were men, women were women, blues were blues, and the men and women who sang them drew the music from a deep well of soul, R&B and sweet and sexy inspiration. 

 I hope that comes close to describing what the Mannish Boys do on stage. They are all blues veterans with hearts rendered purple by their electrifying music. From the searing opening guitar riffs by Kid Ramos, you know they mean blues business. The band was tighter than Ana Popovic's jeans, with great harp by Randy Choertkoff and more great guitar from Kirk Fletcher.

But the highlights of the set were two fine old blues and soulmen, Bobby Jones and Finis Tasby, both just a little shy of their 70th birthday. But there's nothing shy about their music.

Jones is a mainline Chicago blues belter, with gritty, sensuous pipes that let the blues flow, and in his sharp blue threads, a flair for for the kind of of stylish vocal showmanship that's hard to find these days. He crooned, he testified, he got down on his knees, he laid on the floor (yes, he did) and just generally sang his heart out and worked his gluteus maximus off.

Finis Tasby is Texas blues crooner, as smooth looking as he is smooth sounding. He didn't bend his knees that much, but bent the right notes with his voice, in an old, traditional soulful blues style.

Their set was a living history lesson in this classic soulful style, and if anybody was paying attention, how to look the part. These men represent a vital link to a music in short supply, at least performed in the manner in was meant to be sung.

 Odd and ends

What did I miss? A lot of good blues, I suspect, but that's the way it is in the blues world. Some days you're the windshield, some days you're the bug. (Okay, I stole that from a Delbert McClinton tune. But it's a great line.)

Criticisms? I didn't get to see all of this festival..

The Wheeling festival is very nicely run event, and much of the credit goes to Bruce Wheeler, who seems to have invented it about ten years ago. He was properly feted in the appropriate bureaucratic language by the West Virginia legislature and the city of Wheeling in a presentation toward the end of the night. From all appearances, he deserves all the credit he gets.

The blues can be a hard sell these days, but they seem to be thriving in this scenic amphitheater on the banks of the Ohio River. and the lineup actually earns the title of blues festival.

Sweet inspiration

This post was inspired and fueled in part by a libation that is the original concoction of BlueNotes. The only reason I share it here is the hope that it will enjoy worldwide fame and forever be part of the BlueNotes legacy. It's also inspired in part by BeerNotes evil twin, BourbonNotes, who believes that unless you can measure life with a  shot glass, it isn't worth measuring.

So. If you take equal parts bourbon and amaretto and pour them into a rocks glass, with a cube or two of ice, or neat if you like, you'll have a drink that's sharp and sweet, just like the best blues song. (Use unequal parts as you like, if your mood is sharper or sweeter.) Do NOT turn it into a rocks drink. Excessive ice is necessary only at the north and south poles.

What do you call it? You call it the HoneyBoy Dog -- the sweetness of amaretto and the bark of bourbon. Ask for it from your favorite mixologist. Tell him that BlueNotes sent you.